Our Commitment to You
At Stauffers of Kissel Hill, we are focused on food safety so that you can feel confident when shopping for your family. As soon as food is delivered, we check it for quality, freshness, and safety before it ever reaches our shelves. We monitor storage and cooking temperatures, preparation methods, cleaning and sanitizing procedures, dates, and allergen labeling.
Our Food Safety Team
It takes a team of people working hard every day behind the scenes to keep you safe. By law, you only need one person with a Manager Food Safety Certificate to be available at all times during operation of a licensed food facility. If that person is not on site, they must be available by phone. Although this is the minimum standard, it is not enough for Stauffers, a locally-owned business serving customers, friends, and family members throughout our community.
All of our Fresh Foods Chief Operating Officers, Buyers, General Managers and Assistant General Managers receive Manager Food Safety Certificates. And we go above and beyond that . . . each of our Department Managers, Assistant Department Managers, Chefs and Prep Cooks is certified in food safety. Plus, we provide additional training for every team member who handles food requiring time and temperature control for safety (TCS). In addition to professionally training our staff, we include food safety performance as a critical component of performance evaluations.
Internal Inspections
Although the Department of Agriculture visits our stores for a full inspection annually, we perform our own monthly self-inspections, conducted by a person who has the Managers Food Safety Certification, using the Department of Agriculture standards. We have our refrigeration and freezer equipment wired to a central monitoring system. This extensive system allows us to keep track of all case temperatures so that, if there is ever a problem, we can react quickly, ensuring all of our food is protected and remains safe. During our inspections, we manually take temperatures of our foods using a digital thermometer. Food temperatures are also taken daily in all of our preparation areas to ensure our handmade products are cooked and cooled safely. The internal inspection is very rigorous, exceeding the minimum standards established by the state. Following inspections, the Food Safety team reviews the results to ensure all of our written standards are being followed and that they are achieving the desired outcomes. All of this work is performed behind the scenes as we strive to consistently provide safe food for our customers.
Product Recalls
View Information About Product Recalls
Fresh Meat Department
Many times, you hear announcements of meat or ground beef recalls. You can be assured that our fresh meats are of the highest quality. Stauffers has its own beef program, where selected animals are culled specifically for us to meet our high expectations. A government quality inspector ensures that our beef comes from the top 15 percent of all beef produced. Before the beef is shipped, E. coli testing is performed; it does not ship until our Buyer receives confirmation of the test results!
Did you know we grind our own ground beef? We do not use pre-ground product, called tube grinds. We take whole pieces of beef, cut them into chunks, and grind them. Now that’s fresh! We take it one step further by placing the date and time on our fresh ground beef label so you know when it was made, ensuring confidence you are getting the freshest product possible.